"Attention Marineville, I am calling battle stations! We are
about to launch Stingray!

As the grizzled Commander Shore puts it, anything can happen
in the next half hour. Stingray, flagship of the World Aquanaut Security Patrol,
defends Marineville on a weekly basis from the depredations of the undersea
despot Titan and his Aquaphibian servants. Hero Troy Tempest pilots the
super-submersible with the help of radio expert Phones and the mute amphibian
beauty Marina.

Episode Listings

1

Pilot

6th October 1964

2

Emergency Marineville

13th October 1964

3

The Ghost Ship

20th October 1964

4

Subterranean Sea

27th October 1964

5

Loch Ness Monster

3rd November 1964

6

Set Sail for Adventure

10th November 1964

7

The Man from the Navy

17th November 1964

8

An Echo of Danger

24th November 1964

9

Raptures of the Deep

1st December 1964

10

Titan Goes Pop

8th December 1964

11

In Search of the Tajmanon

15th December 1964

12

A Christmas to Remember

22nd December 1964

13

Tune of Danger

29th December 1964

14

The Ghost of the Sea

5th January 1965

15

Rescue from the Skies

12th January 1965

16

The Lighthouse Dwellers

19th January 1965

17

The Big Gun

26th January 1965

18

The Cool Caveman

3rd February 1965

19

Deep Heat

10th February 1965

20

Star of the East

17th February 1965

21

Invisible Enemy

24th February 1965

22

Tom Thumb Tempest

3rd March 1965

23

Eastern Eclipse

10th March 1965

24

Treasure Down Below

17th March 1965

25

Stand by for Action

24th March 1965

26

Pink Ice

31st March 1965

27

The Disappearing Ships

7th April 1965

28

Secret of the Giant Oyster

14th April 1965

29

The Invaders

21st April 1965

30

A Nut for Marineville

28th April 1965

31

Trapped in the Depths

5th May 1965

32

Count Down

12th May 1965

33

Sea of Oil

19th May 1965

34

Plant of Doom

26th May 1965

35

The Master Plan

2nd June 1965

36

The Golden Sea

9th June 1965

37

Hostage of the Deep

16th June 1965

38

Marineville Traitor

23rd June 1965

39

Aquanant of the Year

30th June 1965

Episode 1 - The Pilot - The first episode of the
series does a fantastic job of establishing the show's premise and characters,
and provides a gripping story into the bargain. After a submarine is destroyed
in mysterious circumstances, the WASP dispatches Troy Tempest and the real star
of the show, Stingray, to investigate. Tempest's belief that hidden undersea
civilizations exist is confirmed, when he discovers that Titan's Aquaphibians
are behind the attack.

The story's pure comic-book fiction, with its quasi-Atlantean
civilization and Sci_Fi trappings - a town that descends into the earth on
hydraulic stilts, fish-shaped submarines, and Stingray itself, its strength lies
in the gosh-wow-conviction with which it's played out - and the phenomenal
puppetry and effects work. Most impressive, however, is the economy with which
the script establishes the setting and characters. Ina few short scenes, we're
introduced to all the heroes and villains, and the fascinating character of
Marina.

As the first episode in the series, it's a little off to see
the attention lavished on action sequences that only take up a few seconds in
later episodes - especially when lengthy shots of Stingray's launch sequence and
Marineville going to "battle stations" chew up screentime that could be used to
build up the characters. Of course, from a kids perspective, that's what the
show was all about - a city that lowers itself into a vast underground chamber
is just plain cool.

Okay, it does have one or two faults. Titan's another of the
one-note Anderson villains who has no motivation beyond simply being evil, and
Tempest's "trial by fish" is just bizarre. But overall, this is an excellent
introduction to the series.

Episode 22 - Tom Thumb Tempest - Clearly, the Stingray
team were going through an ideas drought when they came up with this effort.
While waiting on standby for a mission, Troy Tempest falls asleep after Phones
turns the heaters on, and has a dream in which he and the Stingray crew are
shrunk. And, er, that/s about it.

First off, it's a combination of two hoary old cliches - the
Incredible Shrinking Cast idea that's turned up in everything from Land of the
Giants to Doctor Who, and the "it was all a dream" cop-out ending that's a
familiar from innumerable primary-school creative writing classes.

Both of these narratives devices cause problems for the
episode. Since the characters are puppets, it's difficult to get any sense of
scale. Placed in an environment where the characters are reduced to the size of,
well, puppets, only serves to highlight the unreality of the show.

A bigger problem, by far, however, is the bland "it was all a
dream" plot. The writer`s obviously made a stab at explaining why the dream
happens at ll - Troy feels as though he's being belittled by Commander Shore -
but that can't disguise the fact that the episode is entirely inconsequential.
It's literally a story where nothing happens for half an hour.

Even the dream sequence itself isn't especially entertaining
- party because it's so obvious that it's a dream, but also because it's clearly
aiming at a surreal atmosphere, but falls far short. In the right hands, this
could have been wonderfully bizarre, but it degenerates into sub-Tom-and Jerry
shenanigans when Tempest dreams that the Stingray crew have interrupted the
dinner party preparations of their nemesis Titan.

To be fair, the resolution is reasonably clever - Tempest and
the crew start a fire, which wakes him up because the room he's sleeping in is
hot. However, it's hard not to feel that the story's a wasted opportunity, since
there's mileage in the idea of shrinking Stingray for real. That could've been
an exciting adventure, so why use the tension-breaking "it was all a dream"
device ?